Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - Who is MongoDB?

MongoDB wants to make developers' lives easier.

That was the central message from Guillaume Meister, Solutions Architect Manager for Australia and New Zealand at the global cloud company, as he spoke about the company's mission, its place in the current data landscape, and its advice for businesses navigating digital transformation.

MongoDB, a cloud-native software provider now marking a decade on the global market, focuses on helping organisations harness their data advantage. As Meister explained, "Our main purpose is to help companies develop and maintain their competitive advantage by using data - and using data through applications."

The company's reach is vast, with more than 29,000 customers worldwide across over 100 countries. Here in Australia and New Zealand, Meister revealed, "We have about maybe a thousand customers, including very large companies and banks but down to mid-market corporate game companies. I think every day you're probably using applications on your phone that are using MongoDB technology."

At its heart, MongoDB provides an "application data platform" designed with developers in mind. Meister said, "Companies need to differentiate, and it's more complicated than ever. One way to do that, we strongly believe, is by using all the data you have and you get from your customers, from the market, from everything. And to differentiate you need to be able to use this data in a very smart way through your applications."

Asked what sets MongoDB apart, Meister pointed to the core problems many organisations face. Traditional, "off-the-shelf" software and older database technologies often leave businesses grappling with rigid data structures and cumbersome infrastructure. "You really need to build your own applications using your own data. Therefore, you need to leverage teams of good developers, and what MongoDB does today is helping those developers to get the best out of the technology - develop faster, maintain faster, bring new features without the burden of maintaining, of having to cope with all the complexities of the platform, the infrastructure, and many other cumbersome data problems," he said.

For developers, this shift is transformative. Meister drew a contrast with older systems, where changing or updating data meant lengthy downtime and complex processes. "In the past, developers had to cope a lot with how they would use the data even before they start thinking about the application, because the technologies, like relational databases that were created 40 years ago and are still very much used today, require you to structure the data in a very strange way, splitting the data in hundreds or thousands of tables," he said.

These rigid setups mean that if a developer wants to adapt their application - for example, to capture new features demanded by users - they may have to "step down" the application for the weekend, make changes, and only hope everything works again by Monday morning. It is, he said, an outdated way of working: "MongoDB brings a completely different landscape. We have created something called the document model, which is a very new and specific way to store the information inside of the databases, and this way matches exactly how you're going to use the data inside your application. And if later on you need to make a change, it's super flexible - you can change either the database or the application without any downtime, any time, and that's what companies are wanting today."

This flexibility isn't just technical, but crucial for speed to market. Meister said, "If you look at Facebook for example, I think they make up to 10 to 15 new integration, new features, updates every day, and most of the time you just don't realise it. That's how we make the life of developers easier - just do your code, new features, upgrade, we take care of everything else and we can do that on the run without downtime."

Productivity gains, he argued, are underpinned by both core data architecture and an ecosystem of built-in tools. He stated, "The document model is definitely the foundation of how you use MongoDB, but we are more than that. MongoDB is an application data platform, we call it MongoDB Atlas. Along with the database and the document model, we provide a lot of different tools that allow both the developers and also people managing infrastructure to accelerate the time to market of your applications."

In the past, he said, setting up new infrastructure took weeks or even months - installing servers, configuring security, and integrating disparate systems. Today, with MongoDB's cloud platform, it's a few clicks. "If you need a database on MongoDB Atlas, you just have to click a few buttons and it's on, or use automation products like Terraform, for example. This will very quickly set up fully operational and totally managed databases out of the box with full security, allowing developers to use the brand new tools that we have integrated into Atlas, like search for example or charting, visualisation or mobile sync."

With so many moving parts, digital transformation can be daunting. Meister referenced industry studies noting that up to three-quarters of transformation projects are judged failures, often due to underestimating data complexity and the challenge of migrating multiple legacy systems. His advice for businesses was to follow the example of large Australian corporates and start small.

He explained, "If you think about a company like Woolworths for example, Woolworths has thousands of applications and obviously they wouldn't be able to move everything into the cloud from day one. So what they did was super smart: they started very small with a non-sub-critical application - I think it was the e-receipt in this case - and in a few weeks built up a new version of that working on MongoDB Atlas, put that live on production, see how it worked, use that as a some kind of training for best practices and developers. And then from this point on, started to grow the usage, bring more applications on board, and ended up having a lot of critical apps now in MongoDB Atlas. But starting small - that's probably the best thing to do."

For those wishing to work with MongoDB, Meister recommended starting online. Technical users can test the platform's tools on a free setup, with chat support available, while larger organisations are encouraged to reach out to his team directly.

As the interview wrapped, Meister offered a final thought: "We will respond very quickly and help you in your new journey."